US Road Trip, Part VIII
5 December 2008 – 5:06 pmFrench Quarter, New Orleans
After touring the city I spent the next couple days in the French Quarter of New Orleans exploring. Most of the time I only carried my pocket camera but on my last night I broke out the big-boy complete with tripod and started wandering.
Walking around with my camera equipment drew a lot of attention, especially on Bourbon St. I was asked everything from…
- “What TV station are you with?”
- “Who’s in town that you’re shooting?”
- “Can you take our picture?”
- “What are you taking a picture of?” And once I pointed out the building I was shooting, three-quarters of the time they would pull out their camera phone and take the same picture.
- I even had one person walk by, give me a dirty look, and say “fuckin’ paparazzi!”. The funny part was that I was only walking down the street and hadn’t taking any pictures of the area yet!
The People
I had variety of people asking for the picture to be taken and they all had their own stories:
- “Hey, hey, awesome camera… how come you’re not drunk?”
- “Take another one with my… this beautiful lady… come on, take another one…”, after taking another shot, “come here… I’m wanted by the FBI so don’t put this on TV, okay?”
- “Did you get me licking her ass?”, showing him the picture, “Dude, you got the group but… here take another one.”
- “You want the best fuckin’ picture you’re going to get all night?”, playing stupid I asked of what, “Me! Who else did you think I was talkin’ about?”
The Architecture
I love the old-country look and feel of the French Quarter. Its mix of decaying historic buildings refitted and repainted definitely add character.
With all of those layers, you can basically point the camera in any direction find something of interest; one block may be next to a cathedral another by a red-light district and all of these are surrounded by local shops and restaurants.
The Signs
